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The employment of passive reflectors enables the millimeter-wave automotive radars to detect an approaching vehicle in non-line-of-sight conditions. In this paper, the installation of such reflectors above the sidewalk at an intersection is proposed and studied, avoiding pedestrians’ blockage and road dust effect at ground level. Through the analysis of the backscattering power, it is shown that the suggested scheme may detect an approaching vehicle in the blind zone at distances of 30…50 m to the intersection point. Additionally, the analysis shows that efficient operation is highly dependent on the spatial orientation and size of the reflector. Even a few degrees rotation may change the detecting range by several meters. In turn, the larger area of the reflector may cover longer detecting distances, improving the radar scheme’s overall performance. It is also shown that further performance enhancement can be achieved by employing a C-type radar, contributing an extra 5 dB to the backscattering power relative to an A-type radar. However, despite these improvements, the strongest scattering centre of the detectable vehicle is systematically identified to the bumper zone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wireless communication and radars will play a crucial role for autonomous vehicles in the nearest future. However, the blockage caused by surrounding cars can degrade communication performance, while automotive radars are never aimed to operate in such conditions. Therefore, in this paper, the authors propose the concept of near‐ground propagation, reducing the blockage effect in the road traffic conditions. Specifically, the radio waves may freely propagate under the blocking car's bottom if the antennas are placed as low as possible to the road. Based on the measured and modelled results presented in the paper, it may be claimed that near‐ground communication and radar sensing are feasible and may combat even heavily obstructed cases. Nevertheless, some challenges associated with antenna locations were encountered. For example, it was discovered that antenna height at 0.5 m acts less effectively against blockage than at 0.3 m. Next, the 27 dB excess loss at the 0.5 m antenna height in the radar deployment is larger than 17 dB at 0.3 m. In its turn, the higher ground clearance of the blocking vehicle positively affects the near‐ground performance. Additionally, the signal propagation at the grazing angle crucially reduces the relevant losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern millimeter-wave automotive radars are employed to keep a safe distance between vehicles and reduce the collision risk when driving. Meanwhile, an on-board radar module is supposed to operate in the line-of-sight condition, which limits its sensing capabilities in intersections with obstructed visibility. Therefore, this paper investigates the scheme with passive reflector, enabling the automotive radar to detect an approaching vehicle in the non-line-of-sight (blind) urban intersection. First, extensive radar measurements of the backscattering power are carried out with the in-house assembled millimeter-wave radar equipment. Next, the measured data is employed to calibrate an accurate analytical model, deduced and described in this paper. Finally, the analytical models are deployed to define the optimal parameters of the radar scheme in the particular geometry of the selected intersection scenario. Specifically, it is found that the optimal angular orientation of the reflector is 43.5°, while the 20 m curvature radius shows better performance compared to a flat reflector. Specifically, the curved convex shape increases scattering power by 20 dB in the shadow region and, thus, improves the detection probability of the vehicle, approaching the blind intersection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The communications between two driving vehicles along a narrow street may be limited by the presence of a third vehicle blocking the transmission. In this work, we investigate radio wave propagation at 28 GHz in an urban street canyon scenario by conducting channel measurements, where the vehicle(s) occlude(s) the line-of-sight path. We quantify the impact of the car blockage and study the alternative propagation paths, which can be used for establishing a data link. Based on the obtained results, we report that besides the low-loss (3.4 dB) reflection from the wall, a radio link through the blocking car may potentially be established for data sharing. Specifically, the attenuation through clear windows is 2 dB, while the attenuation caused by sun protective film is 15 dB. Diffraction over the car and propagation in foliage reduce the multipath power drastically by 21–24 dB and 16–19 dB, respectively, and cannot be associated with reliable links. Finally, measurement results were compared with the ray-based simulation data, which demonstrate agreement to within ± 4.3 dB of measured losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unmanned aerial vehicles, also called drones, are recently gaining increased research attention across various fields due to their flexibility and application potential. The steady increase in the number of amateur drones demands more stringent regulations on their allowed route, mass, and load. However, these regulations may be violated accidentally or deliberately. In these cases, spying with drones, transfer of dangerous payloads, or losing reliable drone control can represent a new hazard for people, governments, and business sector. The technologies to detect, track, and disarm possible aerial threats are therefore in prompt demand. To this end, ubiquitous cellular networks, and especially 5G infrastructures based on the use of millimeter-wave radio modules, may be efficiently leveraged to offer the much needed drone detection capabilities. In this work, we propose to exploit 5G millimeter-wave deployments to detect violating amateur drones. We argue that the prospective 5G infrastructure may provide all the necessary technology elements to support efficient detection of small-sized drones. We therefore outline a novel technology and system design perspective, including such considerations as the density of base stations, their directional antennas, and the available bandwidth, among others, as well as characterize their impact with our ray-based modeling methods. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Leveraging multiple simultaneous small cell connections is an emerging and promising solution to enhance session continuity in millimeter-wave (mmWave) cellular systems that suffer from frequent link interruptions due to blockage in ultra-dense urban deployments. However, the available performance benefits of feasible multi-connectivity strategies as well as the tentative service quality gains that they promise remain an open research question. Addressing it requires the development of a novel performance evaluation methodology, which should consider: 1) the intricacies of mmWave radio propagation in realistic urban environments; 2) the dynamic mmWave link blockage due to human mobility; and 3) the multi-connectivity network behavior to preserve session continuity. In this paper, we construct this much needed methodology by combining the methods from queuing theory, stochastic geometry, as well as ray-based and system-level simulations. With this integrated framework, both user- and network-centric performance indicators together with their underlying scaling laws can be quantified in representative mmWave scenarios. To ensure modeling accuracy, the components of our methodology are carefully cross verified and calibrated against the current considerations in the standards. Building on this, a thorough comparison of alternative multi-connectivity strategies is conducted, as this paper reveals that even simpler multi-connectivity schemes bring notable improvements to session-level mmWave operation in realistic environments. These findings may become an important reference point for subsequent standardization in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In order to effectively deploy high data rate millimeter-wave communication systems in urban environments, accurate information about the radio-wave propagation channel is essential. Radio-wave propagation in urban scenarios strongly depends on the topography of the immediate surroundings. A measurement campaign has been carried out to evaluate the impact of propagation effects on the radio channel at the rooftop level of buildings. In the simulation part of the paper, we present two 3-D models produced with different techniques: first, a simple geometrical model and, second, a highly accurate close-range photogrammetry model; the latter replicates the detailed building geometry. To construct a highly accurate 3-D model, images obtained by an unmanned aerial vehicle were utilized together with the photogrammetry technique. In this paper, we provide a thorough comparison between the measured and the simulated power delay profiles by conducting shooting-and-bouncing ray-based simulations for the rooftop scenario using two 3-D models of different accuracy. The results show that the use of the close-range photogrammetry model can provide better propagation prediction at millimeter-wave frequencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presently, smart and connected wearable systems, such as on-body sensors and head-mounted displays, as well as other small form factor but powerful personal computers are rapidly pervading all areas of our life. Motivated by the opportunities that next-generation wearable intelligence is expected to provide, the goal of this work is to build a comprehensive understanding around some of the user-centric security and trust aspects of the emerging wearable and close-to-body wireless systems operating in mass events and under heterogeneous conditions. The paper thus intends to bring the attention of the research community to this emerging paradigm and discuss the pressing security and connectivity challenges within a popular consumer context. Our selected target scenario is that of a sports match, where wearable-equipped users may receive their preferred data over various radio access protocols. We also propose an authentication framework that allows for delivery of the desired content securely within the considered ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The deployment with beamforming-capable base stations in 5G New Radio (NR) requires an efficient mobility management system to reliably operate with minimum effort and interruption. In this work, we propose two artificial neural network models to optimize the cell-level and beam-level mobility management. Both models consist of convolutional, as well as dense, layer blocks. Based on current and past received power measurements, as well as positioning information, they choose the optimum serving cell and serving beam, respectively. The obtained results show that the proposed cell-level mobility model is able to sustain a strong serving cell and reduce the number of handovers by up to 94.4 % compared to the benchmark solution when the uncertainty (representing shadowing, interference, etc.) is introduced to the received signal strength measurements. The proposed beam-level mobility management model is able to proactively choose and sustain the strongest serving beam, even when high uncertainty is introduced to the measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]